A virtual machine is software that is executed on hardware to create a virtualization of a physical computer system. Virtual machines may function as self-contained platforms that run their own operating systems and software applications.
A host machine, such as a server computer may concurrently run one or more virtual machines using software that is referred to as a hypervisor. The hypervisor allocates a certain amount of the host's resources, such as the host's underlying physical processors and memory devices, to each of the virtual machines, allowing the virtual machines to transparently access the host's resources.
Each virtual machine may use the allocated resources to execute applications, including operating systems referred to as guest operating systems. Each virtual machine guest operating system may be accessed by one or more local or remote clients to perform computing tasks.